writing

Klee facial expression flap phrases and picture gallery

I love Paul Klee and the way he uses building blocks of colour in his Art to convey emotion and meaning.... so what an ideal artist to use to allow the children to create their own "facial expression" art work .

I suggest that you use this picture, Senecio:

This Art and writing lesson follows on from the lesson blog post I posted  

Universal facial expressions ,emotions and different languages

.

We will be using the ideas in both these blog posts to celebrate Euroepan Day of Languages 2015.

Additional resources and lessons guides are available on the VLE  for the Janet Lloyd Network

  1. Revisit emotions, facial expressions and target language phrases the children can say that add "sound and language" to the emotion.
  2. You could hold a "physical face display " here with a card picture frame that the children use, by holiding up and using their face and the emotion and target language phrase to fill the picture frame and become the picture.You will need to model this first.
  3. Take a look with the class at Klee's picture "Senecio"
  4. Ask the children to follow Klee's model and to draw a picture of  the outline of a face.
  5. Give the children coloured card or paper and ask the children to add blocks of colour made from the card on the face .
  6. Each block of colour represents an emotion and acts as a flap under which the child draws a symbol or face to represent the emotion and writes the appropriate target language or target languages phrase linked to the emotion.
  7. Create a class display of "Klee facial expression flap phrases and pictures"

Mirror mirror on the wall......

Start of the new school year and time to revisit the personal information questions and answers from previous years of language learning.

We have put in to place lots of games and activities over the last couple of years to make the revisiting of core language a challenge, a competition, a way to reflect on what we have learnt.

Here is another way that I think we can use at the start of the year to bring back in to focus the language we learnt last year etc to describe ourselves and ask questions of others.

The idea of the mirror on the wall allows us to practise first and second person singular questions and responses!

Each child needs an oval piece of paper:

Question and Answer Mirrors

On one side of the paper ask the children to write down the key information they think they can say about themselves in the target language.So for example a beginner learner from last year should be able to say  a name phrase/ a feeling/ where he/she lives/ his or her age and something he/ she likes (animal or colour or food).This is the "answer mirror"

On the other side of the paper (remember this is a mirror on the wall) ask the children to draw some symbol prompts for the questions: for example a beginner learner's symbols could be : a name tag / a house outline/ a birthday cake with candles/ a smiley face/ a heart shape.This is the "question mirror".

Play a game of spot the question and answer!

  • Ask the children to have their oval shapes infront of them on the desk with the answer mirror face up. 
  • Call out a question to elicit the information the children have put on their oval shapes.
  • Ask the children to listen to your question and to point to the response they would give.
  • Ask a child the specific question and ask them to read out their resonse.
  • Ask the children to turn over their ovals and this time to listen to the question, identify the symbol they have drawn as the question prompt and whisper to a partner the question that you as the teacher have just said. 

Mirror Mirror on the Wall!

Working with a partner, ask the children to take it in turns to ask and answer the questions  on their mirror oval shapes.

One child places his /her mirror "question mirror" face up on the table or on the wall with blu-tac.

The other child must look at the question prompt symbols, point to the symbol  and ask a question.

Can the first child give the answer that he/she has written on the answer side of the mirror?

Mirrors on the Wall .

Create with the children card versions of mirrors - whichever shape the child wants to use.

Ask the children to draw a sketch of their own faces on the mirrors.They will need to use pastel colours for this

Over the top ask the children to write their favourite five questions and five answers about themselves that they can say on the targetr language.They will need to use a dark crayon or felt tip for this.

On the reverse side of the mirror ask the children to write in English two more details they would like to be able to use in their personal information questions and answers this year in the target language to describe themselves in more detail.

Hang the mirrors on the wall - as a mirror mobile!

Daisy Chain Clauses and Conjunctions


This idea has been on my list to write for quite a while now! 
I have selected a daisy chain because it reminds me of Summer.It's now that we have the opportunity to assess what our moving on learners can  say and write.

 They are going to write about their likes and dislikes with nouns and adjectives and use conjunctions to join their sentences together.

Take a handful of conjunctions in the target language:in French let's use "mais,et, car, pourtant,"
  • First let's physically feel and make the sentences.
  • Ask the children to make a list of favourite things - using nouns thye know for foods,clothes,animals or finding new nouns in the bilingual dictioanry 
  • Now ask them to list adjectives ,two per nun thjat they would use to describe the nouns they have sleected.
  • Ask them to think about the adjectival agreement with these nouns.Are the nouns masculine, feminine and in German neuter? 
  • Do they need to use each of the nouns in the plural or singular?
  • Ask then to check their adjectival agreement against the criteria above.


 A physical daisy chain
Now it's palm of your hand time.
You make daisy chains with your hands so we are using our hands as the physical planner for the daisy chains we will make later.
  • Ask the children to open up the palm of their left hand and wiggle their fingers.
  • The index finger on the right hand is their pen with invisible ink!



  • Each finger and the palm of  the left hand represents a key part of the sentence
Thumb- personal pronoun 
Index finger verb
Middle finger noun
Ring finger first adjective
Little finger second adjective
Palm of your hand conjunction



  • Ask the children with the index finger on the right hand to touch each finger on the left hand as they say their physical sentence to themselves quietly.
  • Now they need to add the conjunction in the centre of their sentence by drawing a circle in the plan of their left hand with their imaginary pen and the index finger of the right hand.
  • Can they now add the next part of their setnece - using their fingers again as the prompts for the parts of the sentence?
  • They may need to reorder their finger roles if they use in French adjectives that precede the noun.
  • Once again they add their conjunction and move on to make their next physical clause in the long sentence.
  • If they can they should make five  clauses using the four conunctions.

A visual daisy chain!
And now they can make their daisy chains.

 The centre of the daisy is the picture of the item- the noun they like.

 There will be 5 petals on each daisy .One for the each a part of the sentence and the green stem of each daisy is the conjunction leading to the next daisy .
Now you have your daisy chain!    

Sunshine Sparklers !


This is my "sunshine sparkler" and here is a simple idea to use toward the end of the term with LKS2 emergent/ beginner target language writers!

 The idea was inspired by this wonderful picture below of Versaille and its the illuminated fountains. I spotted it on Twitter


You can find out more about the fountains here on the le monde website

Firstly let's play simple games with "Summertime" words.
The following words immediately come to mind and you will probably be able to think of more!
picnic
sunshine
park
seaside
walk
swimming
holidays


  • Play familiar games like "Simon says " with an action for the words or charades and guessing the word as class mate has mimed or hunt thw word around the classroom or match the parts of words so that we can complete the word.Games that are class favourites fit here.
  • Then let's encourage children to look accurately at the words and write individual words high up in the air with their "sunshine sparkler" stick. Invisible but ,magical and everyone is taking part! and don't forget flicks and twists and wiggles for all those wonderful accents etc!
  • Each child could add their three top favouirte summertime words from the list to the sunshine symbol or start at the top of the sunshine sparkler sticks to take home too!
  • Can the children create their own "sparkling Versaille fountain style painted word art"" to add to a class display of "sunshine sparkling words.They could pick their favourite word from the list you have been playing games with and which they have written in the sky with the sunshine sparkler sticks. You could focus on the cursive writing of ther target language and ask the children to try to write the word in their word art in that cursive style !

Simple seaside,geography comparison,verbs and sentence structure

It's great to actually visit the target language countries and cultures of the languages we try to share with our young language learners and last week I was lucky enough to be able to do just that!
I spent part of the week in Basque France and Basque Spain. This next half term with Year 5 our focus is the seaside .We have looked at the seaside before with our younger learners and so I am always looking for more sophisticated approaches to the theme of seaside.
Well here staring straight back at me was a                                                                             sophisticated seaside and geography focus!


It's so simple! 

  • Take a look at the map. Last week I visited Biarritz and then later in the week San Sebastian! 
  • Here we have an ideal describe,compare and contrast series of activities .
  • These seaside resorts are so near to each other!
  • The activities can be completed in French or Spanish and will engage our learners in sentence structrure, use of common verbs and the use of conjunctions to make comparisons......


Step One - the country,the resorts and language investigation!

  1. Share  the map with the class.Ask them to look at the seaside and coast.Can the class identify the border between two countries? (You may want to explain too about the basque country and their own language- can the children think of similarities in the United Kingdom e.g English and Welsh/ the coast in NW England and North Wales etc)   
  2. Can the children investigate the map and find the three resorts.
  3. Can they work out how far away the resorts are from each other?
  4. Can they decide which languages are spoken in the three seaside towns? Can they write a simple present tense sentence using the verb " to speak" to explain the target language they think they would hear in each town - e.g "A San Sebastian on parle espagnol" and "A Biarritz  on parle français
  5. Can they now add a conjunction and create an extended sentence with the two sentences they have written? Give the children a choice of conjunctions - which do they prefer to use e.g et/ mais/pourtant ? 
Step Two - the weather report

  1. Ask the children to investigate the weather with you in Biarritz and in San Sebastian during one specific week.All you need to do is google the weather for the two places and find the weather forecast for that week. Can they write a weather report for the two towns using conjunctions e.g "Le lundi  à Biarritz il fait beau mais à San Sebastian il pleut"?
Step Three - the resorts and the food 
  1. Let's investigate the food.Can the children find out what food they would eat if they had "tapas" in San Sebastian or ordered cakes in a "salon de thé" in Biarritz?
  2. Can the children help you to make a list of foods that they could eat in these two places...."On peut manger ............ à Biarritz, on peut manger ............à Saint Jean de Luz et on peut manger ........... à San Sebastian"
  3. Can they now add their own preferences from the lists of food using the conjunction "pourtant"?
Step Four- the places and the activities

It's here that the children will see that the seaside resorts may have different foods, sometimes share or have different weather but that the resorts share similar geography and seaside activities! 

All we need to do is:


San Sebastian


Biarritz

  • Give out two pictures of the beach- one of San Sebastian and one of Biarritz- to pairs of children (same pictures for each pair).
  • Can the children make a list in the target language of the geographical features and the buildings they can see in the pictures?
  • How similar are their lists for San Sebastian and Biarritz?
  • Can the children investigate the pictures and make a list of verbs as infinitives to describe the activities they think they can see on the beach in each picture?
  • Can they now make a list using "you can ..." e.g in French "on peut..." of the activities and explain that the same activities take place in Biarritz and in San Sebastian?
Step Five -Writing a description
Can the children now write a descriptive text comparing the seaside in San Sebastian and Biarritz?
What  have they found out?
What are the similarities and differences between the two resorts? 

People Pillar Portrait Poem

I am looking for really easy and effective ways to create writing opportunities with young learners who are working out how to use nouns and the relationship between nouns and adjectives in the target language.
For all the ideas you need a picture stimulus and bilingual dictionaries and card strips  to write down their people pillar portrait poems .
i think that this activity would work  really well to for a Father's Day focus, for a Year 6 leavers focus on what describes  a Year 7 "ready to learn" new starter etc .... the potential is almost limitless

 Stage One  
Focus on one masculine singular noun and a stimulus picture e.g "un clown"


  • Ask the children to look up and cross reference adjectives to describe a clown
  • Are there any adjectives that the children need to write in French before the noun- talk about these first!
  • Ask the children on rough paper to write the adjective in the correct position next to the noun in a list - therefore you repeat thre noun"clown" and write a different adjective next to the noun each time.

Un clown amusant,
un clown actif,
un grand clown,
un clown .........,
...................
  • The children can now make your first "people pillar portrait poem".All they need to do is to write their list written in rough on to the card strip. 
  • Create plasticine or blu-tac feet for the card strip and add clown heads to the pillars.
Stage Two 
Focus on a feminine singular noun and a stimulus picture e.g. "une reine" 





  • Ask the children to look up and cross reference adjectives to describe a queen.
  • Ask the children to anticipate the familiar changes that they can remember to the spelling of the adjectives if they are being written next to a feminine noun
  • Explore the spelling of unfamiloar adjectives and find the feminine ending spelling 
  • Are there any adjectives that the children need to write in French before the noun- talk about these first!
  • Ask the children on rough paper to write the adjective in the correct position next to the noun in a list - therefore you repeat thre noun " reine"  and write a different adjective next to the noun each time.

    • Une belle reine, 
    une reine magnifique,
    une  petite reine,
    une reine.....
    ...............

    • The children can now make your second "people pillar portrait poem".All they need to do is to write their list written in rough on to a new card strip. 
    • Attach the new card strip to the  plasticine or blu-tac feet  so that the card strips for the clown and the queen are back to back.Add  a queen's clown head to the new card pillar.
    Stage Three 
    • Ask the children to find their own two nouns -one masculine and one feminine.The nouns should represent people or professions.
    • Ask the children to create their own people pillar poems and challenge the children to try to use some of the same adjectives to describe both the masculine and feminine nouns.
    • This will allow the children to make comparisopns on spelling of the adjectives when being used with a masculine or feminine singular noun.
    Making the activity 3D
    Clare Seccombe and I have been busy challengimng each other to take ideas we have generated or found and add a twist.Recently I challenged clare to create a 3D version of the People Pillar Portrait Poem. The challenge was successfu; and here is Clare's blpog post response....

    Languages ,Literacy , Joined up thinking -making primary languages special!

    I do love joined up thinking!
    As you may already know we have a network of 110 schools, all loosely working aournd a shared SOW or atleast able to dip in and use resources as they fit best with the individual school curriculum and language learners.

    Should you want to know more about JLN membership here is a link
    Membership of Janet Lloyd Network (full or local) 

    Below is an example of how working as part of team and a network plus sharing information that we learn from others is benefitting our young language learners!


    In Year 4 we introduce our learners to the extra terrestrial family - our aliens .Everyone loves the aliens and most of our network members will introduce and use the resources with their classes at sometime in their teaching and learning! 
    It is very miuch a case of  team work between four primary language teaching practitioners!
    Ana Garcia draws the family,I create the simple stories and activities around the family and then Emilie ,Barbara and Ana provide the accurate French,Spanish and German language and authenticity! 

     Thanks to Little Red Languages Company we are now creating several animated stories in French and Spanish to share with our network members and the schools participating in the DFE Language Learning for Everyone  programme too. 

     This project though is very much Janet Wallbank's (one of our associate language teachers and the class teacher and children from Parish CE in St Helens!



    • I visited the school to observe Janet W.She was introducing the alien family.
    • I  happened to explain to the children that the grandma and grandad alien had been created by Barrowhall CP School in Warrington ,the year before! They were fascinated by the fact the children at Barrowhall  had added to the story ppt and began to suggest their own additional characters.
    • Janet W and the class teacher decided it would be a good idea to ask the children to create their own drawings of new family members,The class selected  an uncle, an aunt and the pets: an alien dog and an alien cat ! 
    • As the family alien focus in  Spring 1  leads to describing the physical features of monsters and aliens in Spring 2, describing the new characters fitted in really well too!  
    • First of all though the characters drawings had to be judged and who better to judge the characters than the artist and the alien stories' author (Ana and myself!) 
    • Here is the winning picture of the Aunt alien....

    • .....and here is the winning picture of the Uncle alien




    •  With a "special congratulations letter" from the author and the artist, the winners were revealed to the class and all the class received mini easter eggs for their efforts!
    • Janet W and the class had real purpose to learning -how to make physical descriptions of people  because the children needed to be able to do this to complete own JLN story ppt - about their characters! They added names too.Below is  "Asteroide " the dog.

    • Last week Janet W shared  the finished ppt with us and then thanks to a tweet by @valleseco Janet W was inspired to create a Youpublisher PDF Flipbook of the story! Hey presto ! We have magic! We have a page turning book ...... and now we can share the book with our other network member schools and  hopefully inspire them too!  

    La famille extra terrestre Parish CE








    Tea bags full of adjectives and flavour!

    Today,whilst training teachers,we explored creative ways to expand my blog post ideas on holding a cafe conversation based on a 

    Mad Hatter's Tea Party

    !

    One of the ways we explored ,was based on the work we did earlier in the CPD session on adjectives and looking for adjectives in the bilingual dictionary and thinking about the agreement of adjectives.

    There are two levels to this creative activity.....

    • First of all each child needs a tea bag- made of paper, folded like a tea bag with an opening at the top- wide enough to pop a  small strip of card through
    • The children also need access to bilingual dictionaries.

    Level One

    Each child has to create an original "fantastic" tasting tea!

    In French and Spanish the noun is masculine - so this makes it ideal for  level one activities,as there is no agreement required.

    All our children need to do is to think of persuasive and exciting adjectives in English e.g. refreshing, sizzling, tingling, sharp, spicy

    They  need to look up these adjectives in the english section of the bilingual dictionary.

    Cross reference the adjectives in the target language section of the dictionary to check meaning.

    Write each adjective on a small strip of card - one per adjective ,making the written adjectives look the meaning of the word.

    Now they have their words to describe their  fantastic tea! 

    Adjective by adjective they need to squeeze out the tea bag ( take out each word and create a fantastical sentence about the tea in whichever target language you teach:

    " the tea is sizzling, spicy and fruity"  

    Now they can create their own drawing of their tea bag with symbols on the bag to explain each fantastical part of their drink of tea and the sentence written under the tea bag itself!

    Level Two

    In French and Spanish , a cup of tea has  a feminine noun! 

    So now each child can follow the activity described in the stages for Level One ,collecting adjectives and writing them on cards and putting them in their paper tea bag containers.

    The children then hand their tea bags and adjectives to  a second child in the class.

    This child has a template of a cup of tea:

    The second child empties the tea bag of its card strips and must write the adjectives on the tea cup with correct adjectival agreements to match a feminine noun in the target language!

    Now can they use  the adjectives to create a complete sentence in the target language? e.g "the cup of tea is fruity,sparkling,warm and refreshing!"

    They can now make a poster to advertise their cup of tea with a complete sentence.

    And finally can they remember their sentence and act it out for the class to try and sell this fantastical cup of tea top the class?

    Under the sea fish puppet and triarama performance


    A while back,a colleague of mine, Clare Seccombe sent me this triarama picture of "under the sea" and I added it to one of my Pinterest boards  Janet's Language Learning.She was interested to know how I would use this triarama to create a piece of spoken performance and/or drama!Well here we go ....!

    It is an ideal " under the sea" triarama for our Seaside project as part of our DFE funded WTSA/ JLN project.Find out more here Language Learning for Everyone and li ks really well with our other Seaside "fishy" ideas.

    The triarama you can see in the picture is from a www.crayola.com blog post on colourful sea anenomes. You can find the instructions here in this blog on how to make the physical triarama.

    My ideas below link this 3D triarama to the story book and the adjectives used to describe fish in this wonderful book: 


    Setting the scene
    1. Read the story book to the class in French or German and share the wonderful drawings or create your own drawings and creative your own fishy emotion phrases in Spanish .Have a look at the blog post here to get a feel for the book and the ideas I have already written about.Fishing for feelings
    2. First create one large class triarama of an under the sea picture.Here is my class backdrop triarama.

    Now let's focus on the adjectives.....


    1. Adjectives add colour to nouns and give nouns character.Look at the sea anenome in the centre of the triarama at the top of the blog post, that's so colourful! 
    2. On strips of coloured card as the children to write the phrase "I am ....+  an adjective  that describes a specific  emotion - in the target language.Ask them to select a piece of  coloured card strip that they think conveys the meaning e.g red - angry , green- calm, yellow- happy , blue - sad etcetra. 
    3. Now ask the children to concertina their card strips with the written phrases on them,to make a sea anenome in the centre of your class "Under the sea " triarama".



    Time to practise "performance".
    1. Invite children to the front to select a coloured strip from our sea anenome and to mime the emotion that they can read and understand on the coloured strip.Can the class guess the  emotion?  
    2. Now we need to add the fish and build a performance.Ask the children to work in pairs and to create four fish characters of their own.Each fish needs a colour, a fantastical fish name and an emotion.Each fish needs a character conveyed by the way the speech bubble information is delivered
    3. For example here is a fish I have just made ......how would you convey the colour,emotion and name?


    The grand class "under the sea"  performance!



    1. Ask the children to work on their tables (project tables would be best here so that we have a fair range of language speaking and writing ability on each table).The children on the table must  display all the fish characters and speech bubbles they have created.Each of the other children now selects a fish character to present in the class "under the sea" performance.
    2. They must attach their selected fish and speech bubble to a puppet stick, practise the way the fish sounds and moves and learn their lines!
    3. Invite each group with their fish to the front to use the class triarama stage set as their "under the sea" back drop for their "fish" performance!(Remember the fish puppet stick must have the fish and the speech bubble at the bottom of the stick as the child puppeteer will operate the fish from behind and above the triarama stage set) 



    Wave sounds,words, reading and writing

    We are going to be sharing ideas on "Seaside" at our DFE funded WTSA/JLN local network meeting twilights this next  half term. You would be very welcome to attend if you are near to one of these CPD twilights on the Training Schedule

    Here are a few simple ways I think we can create some letter string and sound synthesis and then reading comprehension activities for beginner and moving on learners linked to "waves" in the sea.finally our young language learners can write some target language wave messages for other children to  decipher too!



    Wave words 
    This is a really simple idea! It involves the way the words sound.
    This activity is about enjoying the shape and the sound of the words.with each word suggested ask the children to close their eyes and repeat the word after you and imagine that the sounds are waves coming to shore!

    • Ask the children to think of words they know in the target language that sound like a small wave gently moving toward the sea shore or a bigger wave that rolls along toward the shore or a huge wave that crashes to toward the sea shore .
    • What we are actually asking the children to do is remember and recall the "sound" of the word and the effect it makes as it is said 
    e.g.
     deux - is a small short word and makes a gentle thud
    pomme is also a small short warm sound that could be a gentle wave at the sea shore
    ananas has louder and more solid sounds and could be a wave that makes more movement as it comes to shore 
    brouillard is big and strong and rolls mightily to shore.

    Wave word shapes 
    You need to consider the words that your children already know in the target language and then add the final sounds from the words to wave shape cards- a small wave, a larger wave , a big wave.
    Here is an example of a completed wave word shape card.(I have thought of the words "moi", "lapin" and "grenouille" in French for the three waves here).



    You will need 6 different wave word shapes and sufficient cards for one between two- 6 sets of 6 cards will work for most classes.
    • Ask the children to look at their card ,working with a partner and to think of three words that fit the waves.The words must end in the correct final sound and be soft gentle words ( for the small wave), bigger more syllable words for the medium wave and large exciting sounding words for the largest wave.
    • Once they have three words they can share these with the class .
    • Now swap cards and start the activity again , each pair having a new ste of lettre strings on their wave word shapes.
    Reading waves
    This is an activity that we have used before as snake shapes, where the children have to identify and break up the words so that they can understand the message written down.
    This time we will use wave shapes and messages about the seaside .
    Take a look here!  It actually says "J'aime la plage car je peux nager et jouer au ballon!
    the children need to identify each word to understand and read the message.and they can add their own wave message underneath following the original wave pattern as a writing and prompt frame.







    Fishing for letter strings and sounds

    A few years ago we trialed this sounds activity with Year 3 and it worked so well that we will be using the activity again during our "Seaside" focus CPD with the DFE funded WTSA/JLN project.
    It is so simple .....and great fun too.
    First of all you need to create a class magnetic fishing game .


    You need a rod with string attached and on the end is a magnet.
    You need a pool /pot pot bowl with no water in but with card fishes in it
    Each card fish needs a paper clip nose so that when you pop the "fishing rod over the side of the pot,pool etc you can "catch" a fish with  the magnet and its paper clip nose.
    Each fish needs a letter string written upon it.



    Now go fishing with your class.

    • Put the rod in the pool, pull out a fish and then as a class look at the letter string.What does this letter string sound like in the target language?
    • How many fish can the class  catch and keep because a member of the class can think of a word with that letter string in it? If the class can't think of a word then the fish goes back in the pot,pond,pool!
    Add more challenge.How many fish have you got in the net?


    • Add to the challenge, how many fish can they catch as a class .... this means how many words can they say and write that have the specific letter string in the word in the target language and put in their imaginary "letter string word net" ? Count them up? this is how many words the class can catch as fish in that particular net
    • Try a new fish from your magnetic pool.Which letter string word net contains most fish at the end of the game? . 

    Table games 
    • Ask each table to write down on a shared mini whiteboard the target language words they can think of that contain the letter string.
    • Allow the table three minutes bilingual dictionary time too.Can they find new useful words with this letter string in the word.(They must be able to say the word and tell the class the meaning of the word too when it comes to sharing time!)
    • Each table shares their words with the class and then as a class the table with the most words that are real target language words are counted up and that's the number of fish that class can catch with this particular letter string in the words.

    Table against table game 
    • Make it a table against table fishing challenge- so the table with the most words , wins the magnetic card fish.This is a memory activity so differentiate the ability of the children on the tables to make this a fair game.Also words can not be looked up in the bilingual dictionaries this time , so this game would follow on well, from the game above.
    • Which table has the most fish at the end of the game?

    Making progress with listening.Activities using all four skills.

    This year we have been focusing on how we make progress in language learning with our children and how we can track this and record this.
    Here is a simple activity which can be used with all four skills...... to see how children are progressing.
    In our JLN SOW we offer teachers sound files and podcasts to support themselves with upskilling in the target language, but we find that teachers can use these too to develop their own listening activities .The podcasts are great for children moving on from word level! 
    Emilie Woodruffe @EWoodruffe   amd Ana Lavado Garcia @AnaLavadoGarcia have worked alongside me to create podcasts and sound file for every half term from Year 3 to Year 6- so we have lots of listening texts to work with .These ideas are therefore replicable with other podcasts. Simple too!

    Step One 
    Select the podcast and text that contains the language content you have been focusing upon with the class.
    I have selected podcast one from Year 3 for this example (it's all about Emilie in French or Ana in Spanish)

     Give out a series of words from the podcast text you want to use- in a muddled up order.:


    1. Can the children look at the words and decide what the listening text might be about?
    2. Can they spot any key language they have been practising e.g,question words,months, numbers?
    3. Can they put these to one side- you can now see who can identify these words individually.
    4. Can they anticipate in which order they may hear the words?
    5. Ask the children to listen to the text and put the words in the order from top to bottom in a vertical list as they hear them. 
    6. Would they like to listen again and see if they are happy with the order they have generated ?
    7. You can take photos of sample vertical lists of the children that you are following as progress pupils in the class  
    8. Now can they discuss with a partner what they think the listening text is about?
    Step Two
    1. Can they now look at their list of words and gather facts about Emilie or Ana for example: 

    Here is another opportunity to take photo samples of how the children can comprehend and link together sequences of words that belong together.

    Step Three
    1. Give out the words written out on a table that the children have been sorting.
    2. Working in pairs can they create spoken sentences that use all of the words (Remember they have listened to a modeled text already).In this text they can create up to four or five  sentences  speaking as of they are ~Emilie in the first person singular- name/age/ birthday/ where Emilie lives/ feelings
    3. Ask the children in pairs to write down their sentences .You can collect in  their work after the activities and keep samples as evidence of progress in writing from memory.
    4. Ask for volunteer pairs to show and read out loud  their sentences for the class.Now you can listen for pronunciation and intonation  as they read aloud their sentences.